The Civilization of China by Herbert A. Giles

Lack of patriotism is often hurled by foreigners as a reproach to the / Chinese. The charge cannot be substantiated, any more than it could be / if directed against some nation in Europe. If willingness to sacrifice / everything, including life itself, may be taken as a fair test of / genuine patriotism, then it will be found, if historical records be not / ignored, that China has furnished numberless brilliant examples of true / patriots who chose to die rather than suffer dishonour to themselves or / to their country. A single instance must suffice.

The time is the close of the thirteenth century, when the Mongols under / Kublai Khan were steadily dispossessing the once glorious and powerful / House of Sung, and placing the empire of China under alien rule. / Disaster followed disaster, until almost the last army of the Sungs / was cut to pieces, and the famous statesman and general in command, Wen / (pronounced _One_) T'ien-hsian, fell into the hands of the Mongols. He / was ordered, but refused, to write and advise capitulation, and every / effort was subsequently made to induce him to own allegiance to the / conquerors. He was kept in prison for three years. "My dungeon," he / wrote, "is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp alone; no breath of spring / cheers the murky solitude in which I dwell. Exposed to mist and dew, / I had many times thought to die; and yet, through the seasons of two / revolving years, disease hovered around me in vain. The dank, unhealthy / soil to me became Paradise itself. For there was that within me which / misfortune could not steal away; and so I remained firm, gazing at the / white clouds floating over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrow / boundless as the sky."